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Editor's Choice

ADS Instant DVD 2.0

REVIEW DATE:  08.19.03

  • Product: ADS Instant DVD 2.0
  • Price: $199 direct
  • Requires: Pentium III/800; 128MB RAM; 4.5GB free hard drive space; Microsoft Windows 98 SE, 2000, ME or XP
  • Company Info: ADS Technologies Inc., 800-888-5244, www.adstech.com

    • Ratings

    EditorGood

    ReaderFair

    Rate This Product

    ADS Instant DVD 2.0

    Enlarge

    The ADS Instant DVD 2.0 ($199 direct) offers the most complete software bundle of the group, as well as strong performance and good video quality.

    Like the Pinnacle MovieBox USB package also reviewed here, the ADS hardware can send video back out to a connnected VCR (of course, you can burn a project to your PC's optical drive as well). But where Pinnacle bundles only Studio 8, ADS bundles three application-specific programs, including muvee autoProducer DVD Edition SE—a surprisingly effective program that can, among other things, convert your home movies to music videos.

    For tape conversion, ADS bundles Ulead DVD MovieFactory, which flawlessly burned our 54-minute test project to DVD in real time. MovieFactory can also edit previously recorded DVDs by retrieving video data from the formatted video object (VOB) files used by DVDs, grabbing menus and other elements as well if the disc was created in MovieFactory.

    For more advanced video editing, ADS bundles Ulead VideoStudio 7.0 DVD SE, which offers a good range of functionality, including key-framable special effects, flexible video- and still-image overlays, a large preview window, and structured workflow.

    But VideoStudio's DVD authoring capabilities are template-based, which limits navigational flexibility. We also found VideoStudio's dither dissolve to be less aesthetically pleasing than the smoother dissolves offered by other programs, especially when we used it with slide shows.

    More problematic are the confusing status messages that appear during rendering and which seem to indicate that the program is caught in a loop. The only way to be certain that the program hasn't crashed is to monitor temporary file creation in Windows Explorer, which is hardly user-friendly.

    On our two Pentium 4 computers, each with over 1GB of RAM, all the modules ran smoothly and relatively quickly. Synchronization was perfect on the long capture files, with quality similar to that of the other units. But neither VideoStudio nor MovieFactory could burn a DVD or VCD on our 1-GHz Pentium III test-bed with 128MB of memory, even though it was better than the recommended minimum.

    So if you have a reasonably potent PC and can get used to VideoStudio's idiosyncrasies, the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 bundle is worth a look.

     MEMBER RATINGS Rate it Yourself 

    lakia
    Member rating: 
    December 27, 2004
    I just purchased an ADS Instant DVD 2.0. The device seems to freeze about 30 minutes or an hour into recording process. However, very first video I made (100 minutes) did work although device did develop a bit of a smell. Subsequent attempts only work with the device cold (turned off for more than a couple of hours). The 3.1 version of the capture software seems to freeze. If device is unplugged and capture wizard is stopped (e.g., hangs so one must use the task manager), then can resume capture but usually can't get more than 15-30 minutes before it hangs again. Best to shut everything down and try again in a couple of hours. Posted request to technical support, still waiting for reply (post currently only 8 hours old). Definitely not ready for prime time. Tryed to download to version 3.5 hoping it might help, but I believe problem is in device not the software. Currently running on a 2.2 Ghz with 1Gb of memory, WXP.

    ADSVideoNut
    Member rating: 
    July 19, 2004
    I've been (trying) using the Instant DVD2 since my purchase last August. I've had many successful capture and burns. All along, it has had a nagging tendency to freeze during capture using the built in CapWiz 3.1 application. Lately, I've tried everything but the unit freezes now within the first three minutes of a capture session. I've got all other apps closed, P4 - 2.4G processor, 512 RAM, 80G HD (48G free). I've tried everything suggested from ADS. Nothing is working and i suspect the device itself may be defective. It gets VERY warm after running. The only way to unfreeze my computer at this point is to either do a cold reboot of the system or unplug the power cord from the back of the unit. When it works, it's great. Problem is, it seldom works. I'm not trying to flame ADS - I'd just like to make the device work on a consistent basis. I figured I needed to at least let users know how it was for me.

    Arlo_Latino
    Member rating: 
    June 7, 2004
    I could test the ADS DVD 2.0 and DVD 2.0+DV and there are the best that I have ever worked with. Nothing in comparission with Pinnacle, ADS Tech is superior in performance, software boundled, price and the most important think Support !!! For me, I agree with PC Magazine, is the best Choice to buy.

    hlr559
    Member rating: 
    January 19, 2004
    The program worked fine on my Win 2K Prof system for only one day and then I started having weird crashes (only) when trying to save a trimmed video. This ONE feature not working renders the overall program useless to me. There hasn't been a published update for months and after uninstalling and reinstalling I still have the problem. No telephone tech support and couldn't find the same problem in their online KB, which seems to be active and supported.

    patrickjos
    Member rating: 
    December 28, 2003
    Some software/hardware packages are created by Marketing experts who design glitzy interfaces for the software and then spend little resources on perfecting the software itself and testing it. This product seems to be one of them. Most of the development resources for this product went into getting people to buy it. The software was designed in such a way as to make it possible for them to advertise many "features" which really can't be made to work in a useful way (menus on dvd's are an example). Worst of all it crashes repeatedly. When I first installed it, I was able to capture for almost an hour from my VCR. It crashed badly on the second attempt and each successive attempt produces a crash faster than the previous one till at about the sixth attempt I got a crash about 8 minutes into the capture. This after I've wasted almost two days of my valuable time on this product. DON'T BUY IT !! It is poorly designed and has not been tested !! It includes over four different software applications which the documentation tells you to install without giving a real reason why. Out of the four I used only two and both crashed. All I want is one software application that works (even if it's not loaded with features) but that seems to be too much to ask.
     
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